How to comment your code

2010-06-11T02:55:00.000-07:00

Types of Code Comments
There are 5 principle types of code that can be commented:
•Loops
•Conditions
•User defined Functions & Procedures
•Abstract Data Types
•Open code
Practices for Writing Super Readable Code
1. Commenting & Documentation - IDE’s (Integrated Development Environment) have come a long way in the past few years. This made commenting your code more useful than ever. Following certain standards in your comments allow IDE’s and other tools to utilize them in different ways.
2. Consistent Indentation - I assume you already know that you should indent your code. However, it’s also worth noting that it is a good idea to keep your indentation style consistent.
3. Avoid Obvious Comments - Commenting the code is great; however, it can be overdone or just be plain redundant.
4. Code Grouping - More often than not, certain tasks take a few lines of code. It is a good idea to keep these tasks within separate blocks of code, with some spaces between them.
5. Consistent Naming Scheme
6. DRY Principle - DRY stands for Don’t Repeat Yourself. Also known as DIE: Duplication is Evil.
7. Avoid Deep Nesting - PHP itself is sometimes guilty of not following consistent naming schemes: Too many levels of nesting can make code harder to read and follow.
8. Limit Line Length - Our eyes are more comfortable with reading tall and narrow columns of text. That’s the reason newspaper articles look like this
9. File and Folder Organization Technically, you could write an entire application code into a single file. But that could be a nightmare to read and maintain.
10. Consistent Temporary Names - Normally, the variables should be descriptive and contain one or more words. But, this doesn’t necessarily apply to temporary variables. They can be as short as a single character.
11. Capitalize SQL Special Words - Database interaction is a big part of most web applications. If you are writing raw SQL queries, it is a good idea to keep them readable as well.
12. Separation of Code and Data - This is another principle that applies to almost all programming languages in all environments. In the case of web development, the “data” usually implies HTML output.
13. Object Oriented vs. Procedural - Object oriented programming can help you create well structured code. But that does not mean you need to abandon procedural programming completely. Actually creating a mix of both styles can be good.
14. Read Open Source Code - Open Source projects are almost always built with collaboration between many developers. These projects need to maintain a good level of code readability so that the team can work together as efficiently as possible. Therefore, it is a good idea to sometimes browse through the source code of these projects to observe what these developers are doing.
Conclusion
The added benefit of using comments in computer programming is that any documentation that needs to accompany the source code will be easier to write if based on comments. Indeed, some programmers use a kind of meta language that enables the comments to be extracted and used as documenttaion without any additional post-processing.

However, so long as the budding programmer remembers to comment as necessary, they will always be able to pick up a code snippet and modify it or remind themselves of what it does, without having to read every line of code. In a time-constrained world, this might just prove to be the most important reason to comment computer code.

Tips for building a website

2010-06-06T04:32:00.000-07:00

There aren't any magic pills to create a great Web page that everyone will visit again and again, but if you follow these tips your site will be more popular and easier for people to read.

1. Know your audience, and keep them in mind when you write. Look at the site from the perspective of someone who stumbles on it not knowing where they are. Is the purpose of the site clear? Does it invite them to continue?

2. Keep your content short. Avoid scrolling.

3. Use tables of contents. Upload a site map.

4. Keep images size small. Use the correct alt tags.

5. Ensure you check your spelling. Write in a way which makes sense when printed out or read out loud. Avoid "click here".

6. Keep links updated, a 404 is not good for first impressions.

7. Annotate your links. If a page is good enough to link to, then it's good enough to explain why you like it.

8. Have your contact information updated. Ensure that you also have a form which welcomes feedback.

9. Choose a stable Internet Service Provider.

10. Last but not the least, ensure that you have backup of your website even when it is live.

Hello World

2010-01-04T00:45:00.000-08:00

Our first blog and we ought to keep it simple. So its a "Hello World" to all.

We would be posting our company news and titbits, IT related articles and some interesting trivia on this blog soon.

Watch this space.

Information Technology Bytes

How to comment your code

Tips for building a website

Hello World